


Stand Up To Infinity

by bloodfever



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodfever/pseuds/bloodfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre was born with a mark on his wrist, dark with irregular edges.</p><p>Everything else is just time.</p><p>(<b>00:00:00</b>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand Up To Infinity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HalcyonTerror](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalcyonTerror/gifts).



Combeferre was born with a mark on his wrist, dark with irregular edges.  His parents had consulted with the finest physicians but no one of standing or reputation could explain it.  Since it did not appear to be causing the boy any obvious harm they left the mystery unsolved, content to simply conceal his disfigurement from the world, and their own eyes.  So Combeferre continued into adulthood, keeping his shirtsleeves fastened tightly at his wrists, pushing them up only in solitude, considering them a blight on his person and trying to ignore the feeling that the mark had been changing. For a brief moment Combeferre thought perhaps he was healing, that he had atoned for whatever misdeed he had done to result in such a brand, but he soon realised that the mark was not fading, it was merely taking on a more distinct shape.

Soulmarks are not common in France, their origin is entirely unknown and only the most learned of priests and scholars are even somewhat familiar with their appearance and function. There were whispers and rumours about lovers and companions in history and mythos, about Akhenaten and Nefertiti, Odysseus and Penelope, Eloise and Abelard, and others besides, all being born with strange markings on their wrists which served to bind one to the other. Even amongst scholars the accuracy of these whispers is argued and disputed, the evidence examined and re-examined, and no sound conclusion drawn.  For an otherwise unremarkable child born well outside the source of all wisdom and culture, Paris, to be marked in a way that even the most learned of men could not with any certainty identify?  It was fated to pass as an embarrassment and curiosity at best.

Combeferre bore it such. 

He was a student at the Polytechnic when he saw his first tattoo, beyond illustrations from mythology in his texts.  A ship had made its way up the Seine, and a large contingent of sailors were taking full advantage of the leave afforded to them under their contracts of service. The Captain had been invited to speak to the young men of the Polytech about duty, and honour, and defence of the motherland, and he had brought in tow several of his men, of assorted rank.   One of these men had an intricate series of thick bands running around his neck, something even his flimsy and inexpertly tied cravat could not hide.  Combeferre was fascinated by the markings, and beginning to join two dots that he had not considered before.

You may forgive a brief divergence into how much things are perceived in Parisian society, permanent markings having long been reserved for offenders under either God or the Law.   It is not until sailors began returning from long exploratory voyages to Polynésie, indelibly marked and irreparably altered, that the underbelly of Paris began to take note, that the discarded and ignored took up the practice, to communicate with their own kind and to signal to the bourgeois that they held themselves apart, that the disdain of the upper classes could not hold equal to their own sense of community. The wanderers, the sea men, the criminals, the prisoners, all began seeking out tribal markings as rite of passage, initiation, signifiers of status and hierarchy, a paler reflection of their original cultural purpose, an appropriation of intent.

Men of agile minds cannot help but form connections, even when it is not immediately apparent where the new trail of thought will eventually lead.   Set off by the sailor’s even and heavy markings, Combeferre was nursing the first tentative threads, scouring the university library, the more esoteric book merchants he knew.  He consulted with Greek myth, Norse history, Egyptian hieroglyphs, he read accounts of battles and great marriages.   The word _soulmark_ was hidden deep in a Roman account of the occupation of Mesopotamia, a brief tale of a great General and his mistress, who had been bound to each other by Juno and were forced to flee across the sea by his jealous and enraged wife.  The tale spoke of each bearing a dark mark on their wrist, which seemed to morph and change with their proximity, and marked the very moment Juno took both their souls in her hand.

Combeferre sat that night in his room, burning through a week’s supply of candles, examining his wrist and wondering why he had not noticed that the mark now looked like numbers, and that those numbers appeared to be counting toward something.  To what they were counting he could not be sure, but in his dreams Hera and Juno, Frigg and Isis called to him and in waking the phrase _anima signum_ swam in his mind.  

As they prepared for revolution it had not escaped Combeferre’s attention that the countdown on his wrist was coming into alignment with their countdown to the barricade, and it had perplexed him to no end.  He could not see likely circumstance in which he would meet his soulmate in battle, but equally could not escape the number of his mark slowly dwindling.   He would dearly like to better understand what was happening, but he had told no one (not even Enjolras or Courfeyrac) about what he had heretofore erroneously considered to be his shame, and there was no reliable living source with whom he could consult.  So instead he marched to the barricades resolute, pushing all thought of his mark to one side to better consider his armaments, to better fight for their freedom.

He did not think on it again until the early hours of June 6, lining up the bodies of the fallen, of Eponine, of Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, of Cabuc. Combeferre had pushed up his sleeves while he worked, and Courferyac had approached him solemnly, eyes mirroring his own grief.  They had slipped into a quiet embrace before Combeferre was aware either had moved, and he might have thought it was a goodbye if it had not been for Courfeyrac’s quiet voice in his ear.

“I have a mark, like yours.”

Combeferre pulled away, looking at his own wrist with confusion and disbelief, before grabbing Courfeyrac’s right hand and pushing his sleeve up harshly.  There, dark and clear, were the numbers

00:00:00

And so for his own.

Combeferre stood for a moment, considering just for a moment the possibility of his having died and this being some kind of vision of purgatory.  It was not consistent with any account he had heard, but it seemed more like the fulfillment of a wish than a function of reality.  So he stood, love blooming to sit brightly aside grief, two blossoms of the same form but different shade.

And he stood even still, until Courfeyrac leaned over to press a tentative kiss on his mouth.

“It is you.”  Combeferre said, knowing that by dawn they would surely watch each other die.  “It is you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _With Her_ by Pablo Neruda.
> 
> Come say hi at [prometheusatthebarricade](http://prometheusatthebarricade.tumblr.com) :D.


End file.
